


Four Doors Catherine Warren Left Open and One She Rushed Right Through

by MmeBahorel



Category: Mrs. Warren's Profession - Shaw
Genre: 5 Times, Gen, Misses Clause Challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-14
Updated: 2014-12-14
Packaged: 2018-03-01 12:09:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2772491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MmeBahorel/pseuds/MmeBahorel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can't find them, make them."  There have never been many circumstances to find in Tower Hamlets, but Catherine Warren never closed a door if she could help it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Four Doors Catherine Warren Left Open and One She Rushed Right Through

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RR_Duscan (damozel)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/damozel/gifts).



\- 1856 -

Catherine had never thought sunlight a privilege until Reverend Bennet found her the position at his friend's Albert Coffee Room. Her sister Elizabeth had disappeared, and Rev. Bennet had suggested that a girl was better looked after at work than at school, for she had no chance for idleness and knew her character was a constant benefit to her. Catherine's mother had agreed, so she was pulled out of school and installed in a scullery in Finsbury. Catherine did not particularly wish to help in her mother's reeking fried fish shop, but life in a temperance scullery was hardly what she had dreamed, either.

Due to her youth, Rev. Bennet had petitioned that she be allowed to live at home rather than live in. Catherine now walked to work before dawn in the winter. The cook started the fires, but Catherine kept them stoked all day, fetched water from the pump, and washed the interminable dishes. By the time the coffee room closed for the evening, it was well after dark. Catherine's life was lit entirely by gas. The court was so narrow and water service so early that even trips to pump happened in shadow.

Elizabeth's departure had shaken the Warrens badly. Catherine had thought they were friends as well as sisters, but when Lizzie ran off, she gave Catherine no notice at all. Lizzie had liked to flirt back at the young apprentices and boys of the neighbourhood, but there was no use running off with any of them. She taken nothing with her, just disappeared after school one evening, telling Catherine she would walk down to the nursery with Mary Petty because Mary said she was to have a job selling flowers. Catherine had better things to do than investigate Mary Petty's notorious porkies and went off with Polly Tolson and Mabel Burns and Mabel's new jump rope. Everyone believed Mary later when she said she had never had any plans with Elizabeth, and no one believed Catherine when she insisted Elizabeth had never told her goodbye. On top of being thought a liar, she also had to endure her mother, Rev. Bennet, and even the schoolmistress making far too much of her associations with boys, as if flirting is what had sent Elizabeth into some world they never spoke to her of directly but that was patently not death. Within months, Catherine had been removed from school and pushed into the scullery, where the only the coal man ever seen.

The Albert was not open late, and Catherine's way home was well-lit down Bishopsgate. The mornings only saw carters, but in the evenings, she could see the faces of people going home to their families or out to the pub or even to the theatre. Catherine and Elizabeth had been to a concert once, and Catherine thought it the best thing in the world, but they never again had a spare penny.

Catherine was day-dreaming when a gentleman stopped her to ask the way to St Bartholomew's.

“The hospital?” she asked, confused.

“Precisely.”

“You're much too far east, sir!”

“Damn me.” 

Catherine took a quick look around her and the walls of St Botolph's churchyard. She pointed the direction, just beyond the church. “London Wall ought take you over there.”

The gent thanked her. “You're a pretty one, you know.”

“Am I?” She flushed a bit at the compliment. He couldn't see that her hands were dry and cracked from washing dishes.

“I ought to give you sixpence for the directions, but if you let me give you a kiss, you can have a whole shilling.”

“Just for a kiss?”

He pulled a shilling from his pocket. Catherine put out her hand without a thought. The gent's moustache pricked her lip when he kissed her, but it wasn't so bad. She thanked him, and he let her skip off home.

Now she had a whole shilling. When she next had an afternoon off, she could go back to Wilton's Concert Rooms and buy herself a pie, too.

A few days later, the gent was back. “Are you lost again, sir?” Catherine mocked him.

“Maybe I am. Did you like the kiss I gave you?” Catherine pursed her lips and shrugged at the odd question. “I liked the kiss you gave me.”

“Really?”

“I liked it so much, I wondered if you might do something more for me.”

“What?”

“Put your sweet little hand around my cock.”

Catherine was thoroughly confused. She knew her dry hands were not sweet, nor could a gent possibly want them around his thing. “I don't think so, sir,” she replied, but she did not run away. There might be another kiss and at least sixpence if she stayed.

“Come dear, just a touch. I'll give you another shilling.”

The church bells chimed a quarter to eight. Her mother would wonder where she was, Catherine knew, and she certainly should not be touching men's things in the shadow of a church. “Not by the church.”

“Down the court?” he pointed. “I shan't hurt you. A shilling if you hold my cock a full minute.”

It was a shilling. “Done.” 

He did not mind that her hands were cold and rough. His thing – his “cock”, as he called it – was pale and rather limp. It looked very large, and it felt strangely heavy in its loose skin. When her minute was up, Catherine wiped her hand on her skirt before presenting it for the promised shilling.

He kept coming back. There was something strange to Catherine about the whole thing – she knew she did not have nice hands after washing dishes all day. Why would a gent spend so much money making fun of a strange girl he saw in the street? When at last he asked, “If I gave you half a crown, would you let me touch your bum?” Catherine understood what he had been doing. She had kept back two of the shillings for the promise of a night at a music hall, but that had not yet happened. The others she had frittered away on sweets and twice on the omnibus down to the Tower and on a new pair of stockings she had hidden away from her mother. She had done nothing that could really ruin her character, she thought. If a gentleman wanted to put his privates out in public, that was on his character. She would not ruin hers for two and sixpence.

“Would you?”

“No!” she yelped and took off running down the pavement. A girl must go through life with a good character or go to the bad, Rev. Bennet said. A girl's virtue was a pearl, and her virtue determined if she could keep a good character. To lose one's character was worth more than two and a half gropes.

\- 1863 - 

Liz had warned her that gents were hairy, but this one she had found must be particularly bad, thought Kitty. She had done everything Liz said, had gritted her teeth when the doctor inserted his cold metal tool into the warm slit between her legs to see her maidenhead. Had repeated “cock” and “fuck” until she no longer blushed at the terms. Had agreed that she would not scream, because this gent was particular and liked to think women adored him so much they gave their tight, virgin cunts out of love and gratitude for his notice. But he was so very hairy!

Kitty took a deep breath and forced the bar smile to her lips, the one that never showed her teeth or reached her eyes. The professional smile for barely tolerated drunks. The gent's breath smelled of whisky. She allowed him to take her to the bed, its white sheets inviting, and she tried to remember her brief training in how to help a gent remove his trousers.

His thing – his “cock” – was smaller than Kitty had expected. This might not be so bad, she thought, as she forced her bar smile wider and asked, “Can I touch it? Your – your cock? Your very big cock.” She hoped he did not think her too awkward. Kitty thought herself not a bad liar, but she was no actress. Liz had promised her ten pounds if the plan came off, so it had to come off.

“Does it please you?” the gent asked.

“Very much.” She grabbed it awkwardly. It was hard and warm, a very strange piece of flesh if one really examined it, different only in size from the man in the court those years ago. “It is a very fine cock,” Kitty told him mechanically. It lay in her hand, red and unmoving, not looking particularly fine at all.

“Have you seen many cocks?” the gent worried.

“No, but yours makes me think they must be fine things.” Liz had rehearsed the line with her.

“Would you like this fine cock inside you?” Kitty lost her voice and could only nod. Here was the moment at last. “You must tell me. Do you want me to fuck you?”

“Yes,” she croaked, her throat dry.

“Tell me. Do you want me to fuck you?”

The words tumbled about in her mouth before she could manage to spit out, “Fuck me.”

“Anything you want, you delicious little bitch,” the gent agreed with a greedy smile. He could swallow a girl whole the way a girl swallows a bonbon, Kitty suddenly thought.

He forced his thing inside her with a couple of quick thrusts, and Kitty could not hold back a yelp of pained surprise. Realising she had done just what she had promised she would not, she clenched her jaw and balled her fists, letting him finish as stoically as she could manage. His weight on top of her was uncomfortable, and his motion was almost convulsive, but once he was in place, the shock dissolved. When he came to a final shudder and pulled out of her with a light squelch, Kitty was glad it was over but did not feel particularly ashamed. It had not been nearly as awful as she had feared. She sat up and gasped at the spot of blood on the pure white sheet between her legs.

“Very nice,” the gentleman said, observing the stain. “The cunt always weeps a little blood at first. I've baptised yours nicely.” He left before Kitty could find her tongue.

Liz found her sitting at the edge of the bed, away from the blood stain. “Was it too awful?”

“Surprising more than anything,” Kitty admitted. She ha had enough time to get her breath back. “Do they always act like they can just pop right in?”

“When you get more used to it, they can. Will you let me clean you up?”

“I can wipe between my own legs,” Kitty answered, surprising even herself with her straightforward tone.

“I'll show you how to clean his emissions out.”

“Is this all it is, really?”

“All what is?”

“Losing your virtue.”

“Yes. It's this simple.”

“Not much of a pearl, then. Easiest ten pounds a girl ever made.”

“Are you all right? I thought you might weep.”

“I thought I might, too. Maybe I will. Rev. Bennet can go hang, his lies about virtue being worth anything. He paid my ten pounds, didn't he?”

“Yes. Fifteen in total to cover my expenses.”

“Can I see my share?”

Liz dropped a shower of gold coins onto the bed in front of Kitty. They kept Kitty's fingers occupied all night as she babbled on. She did not weep until morning. The whole thing had been too easy, she knew, and what she finally mourned was not her lost virtue but the virtue, the ability to say “no”, that God had apparently withheld from her. She had no virtue, no great pearl, if it could go so easily, and that meant everything Rev. Bennet had ever said to her was a lie. She could not be saved because she was born lost. In the light of day, however, ten gold coins was a great consolation. If she were not permitted a great store in heaven, then she had the beginnings of one on earth, and earth would do very nicely.

\- 1865 -

The motion of packet had calmed, Kitty swore, but no one else rose from the floor or let go the spittoons the stewards had passed around. She sat up, a single head above the wretched mass of the seasick. “Lizzie?”

Lizzie groaned. “I'm never returning to England. Remind me of that should it all go terribly wrong.”

“I'm going out on deck. I need some air.”

Lizzie waved her away, much to Kitty's relief. The charade under which they were traveling was oppressive. Always looking to one's manners, one's accent, even one's gloves. They were young ladies, the sort of women who ought to bring across a decent store of money. Girls who spoke like they grew up in the shadow of the Tower did not go on fancy holidays to Europe and would be investigated over their money, Liz feared. The more Kitty kept to herself for fear of slipping up, the better she found the trip.

On deck, the wind was keen but refreshing after the smell of sick and bodies below. Holding her hat on her head, she walked towards the bow to take in all the fresh wind possible. The steam trailed away to the rear, and Europe would appear soon, she hoped.

As she stood at the rail, a man's voice interrupted her train of thought. “It is good to see a young woman up and about.”

“We cannot all have vapours at once.”

He laughed, showing the white teeth below his dark moustache. He was a young man, only perhaps her own age. “Are you traveling alone?”

Kitty was touched by the real concern evident in his voice. “My sister is lying down.”

“Having vapours?”

She smiled at the shared joke. “Trying to keep her guts in.”

“I am sorry for it. But you are quite seaworthy – you've made the passage before, I daresay.”

“Never in my life been out of London until last night! I begged Liz that we had to take the morning packet, not the night one, because I didn't think I could live with coming into Europe all asleep.” It was more words than she had spoken together to anyone on this trip, but something in the young man's manner loosened her tongue. “You're laughing at me now, aren't you, sir?” 

“Not at all. My first time, I was sick as a dog, but I still pulled myself together not to miss the first glimpse of Ostend.”

“You've traveled a lot, have you?”

“This is only my fourth trip.”

“That's a lot,” Kitty insisted. “Are you getting a start as a salesman?”

“I'm an artist. Well,” he hedged at Kitty's impressed gasp, “I'm trying to be one.”

“You're going on to Paris, then?”

“To Cologne this time, then down into Italy.”

They chatted on of his previous travels in France. Kitty quite forgot the cold and lost all attention to what she said. The young gentleman was good looking, with black hair and high cheekbones that somehow did not make him look foreign at all. Dark, but decidedly English.

“Would it be improper to ask why you are traveling?”

“Probably,” Kitty admitted, but she shrugged it off. “My sister and I are going to Brussels for work.”

“Do you have work there?”

“We intend to make work there. There's an English colony, isn't there?”

“Yes. A number of people who cannot quite afford Paris have taken up in Brussels.”

“They must be tired of having everything done for them in foreign ways. We'll find a way to get on.”

“It can be dangerous for a woman alone.”

“But I'm not alone. Liz is downstairs.”

“Below decks.”

Kitty smiled. “Yes, below decks.”

The young man was good looking, and very open in his manner, yet Kitty did not think of flirting with him. His manner to her was open, yes, but it was a boyish sort of friendliness, not at all the manner of the men among whom she had found herself for most of her life. She was thrilled when he showed her the change in the horizon that marked land, and when as they drew even closer, he pointed out the church steeples.

Wan faces began to make an appearance as the packet steamed towards the piers framing the harbour. With a sigh, Kitty mentioned that she ought to see to her sister.

“And yet another friendship between travelers collapses once in sight of land.”

“Is it always like this? Meeting lovely people and then giving up on them?”

“Not always.”

But Kitty frowned. “It has to be today, though, because you haven't even told me your name.”

“You've not told me yours, either. I see we have both been remiss in our manners. Walter Praed.”

“Kitty Warren.” She rarely used her real name these days, but Mr Praed's honest face deserved to be treated in kind.

“It was a pleasure to meet you, Miss Warren. As a veteran of Ostend, might I offer to see you and your sister safely through customs?”

“Then we won't have to say goodbye just yet! Yes, Mr Praed, you may.”

Liz was less enthusiastic in making Mr Praed's acquaintance. She seemed to take his measure in an instant, was coolly polite, and once safely separated from him, dropped straight into a lecture. “A man like that brings no profit. There's no use trying to bring him on because he'll never come on. You and I are not to his taste. Oh, he might take you to the theatre, but he won't pay you for it. He kept you occupied aboard ship, and that's fine, but you mustn't think anything more will come of it. He's an artistic breed, isn't he?”

“Yes. He's studying sculpture.”

“He'll not make a go of that, either. Best to leave all that type to themselves. They prefer it, anyway, when not trapped on a horrid little packet. I wanted to avoid France, but we should have gone via Calais. They promise a crossing of only an hour and a half! Why did we not go via Calais?”

Mr Praed was spoken of no more. Kitty never volunteered that he had asked her to write him if she wanted to share her impressions of Brussels with someone. But she kept the address he had slipped into her hand. He had been very kind, and if things went terribly in Brussels, she might need his kindness again.

\- 1870 -

“It's a nice place you've got here,” the gentleman told Kitty as he sat up in bed. “Very comfortable.”

“I should think so. You're here often enough.”

“What does a place like this bring in?”

“Are you talking business at me?”

“With you.”

“With my bubbies, more like. If you're going to talk business, I'm going to clean up and put something on, and that'll spoil everything, won't it?”

“I'm serious. You've got a nice place here. It's not just the girls that are nice. It's the place. You know how to treat a man who's been from home too long.”

“I'm not your wife.”

“I don't want a wife. Anyway, from what I've seen, there aren't a lot of comfortable places like this. You must do well.”

“You are talking business. Put on your trousers and go downstairs to the parlour.”

“Don't toss me out, Kitty,” he complained.

“I won't toss you out. But if you're going to talk business, I'm going to talk business, too, and I'm not going to do it half naked.”

He did put on his trousers and leave the room. Kitty washed herself quickly and threw on a heavy dressing gown, its dark wool fabric marking her as something apart from the girls in their fine clingy silks. Business should not wait until she had time to completely dress.

Liz was making introductions in the parlour when Kitty pulled her aside. “George wants to talk business.”

“Business?” she asked skeptically.

“He insists upon it. Do you want to join us in the office?”

She pursed her lips disapprovingly. “I think I had better.”

What a pair the Warren sisters must appear, Kitty thought, as Liz seated herself behind the big desk. Neither of them had expected business, otherwise the sober tweed walking suits would have come out. But then, George was still missing his waistcoat, coat, and cravat. It was not at all an auspicious meeting. “How is it that we can help you, George?” Liz began.

Now that he was confronted by both women across a heavy desk, he seemed to lose a bit of his self possession. “Well, you see, you've a really nice house here. A really well-run business, I should think, with a steady clientele who keep coming back like I do.”

“Yes, we do,” Liz agreed sternly.

“What of it?” Kitty added.

“You've formed a corporation, I suppose.”

Kitty's face fell. This was business with a vengeance. Liz replied evenly, “That is what larger concerns than ours do. We are a family here. The girls are like younger sisters to us, not commodities to be traded. We keep ourselves nicely, and that is enough.”

George's eyes narrowed shrewedly. “You need a man for the business, don't you?” Damn George for a clever monkey, Kitty thought. “You ought to have a bigger concern. You see, I've come into some money, and I'd like to put it to a going concern, something trustworthy. This industry does well, I'm told, and you girls have great potential. Having a man in the business lets you set up a corporation to shield the assets, gives you a respectable name on the bank account you'll want for your profits. You know, you could marry on a corporation,” he told Liz, his eyes patently excluding Kitty.

“The brothels that have gone corporate have done so in order to open multiple houses and strip the trade. The only way profits are maintained to shareholder satisfaction is on the backs of the girls, keeping them in utter misery. If you're looking for forty per cent return, you'll not have it out of us.”

Liz's sagacity left him speechless for a moment. “I see you have considered it.”

“We've been in Brussels five years, George,” Kitty told him. “Did you really think you could tell us something about our business that we didn't already know?”

“Well, no,” he was forced to admit. “But you do have a damned comfortable house and it's a shame you've only got the one.”

“I don't need to hear any more,” Liz interrupted. “George, you are welcome to see us at any time. We are grateful for your company. I need to see to the girls.”

She left the room, an undoubted cue for Kitty to finish letting him down gently, but Kitty was curious what he had in mind. “Liz doesn't want men in the business. You take everything for yourselves. But I like the idea of another house, so let's keep talking.” She took Liz's seat behind the big desk. “What do you want to do?”

“Ostend.”

“Ostend?” she replied skeptically. “There's only business in the summer, and I'd never keep the girls under control when they're denied the Digue and sea bathing and the rest of it.”

“I don't mean for the summer. I mean for the Englishmen who are there for the crossing. And the Englishwomen. Think of it – a house right there by the pier to pop a fresh girl into whenever you get one.”

“You are a brute.”

“Ease her into the life. Same customers as London but a new place. Get her used to foreigners bit by bit. And, for us, a comfortable place to enter the Continent. Or to say goodbye to it.”

“A travel stop,” Kitty mused. She was the one who went back to London every year to hire new girls or escort some of the Belgian and French girls to the capital. “See, I was thinking that if we had another house, we could keep some of the girls longer. Some of them don't get tired of the trade so fast, but the men get tired of them and we have to let them go abroad and hire fresh. If we can move those girls to a second house, they could work for us longer, save up a bit more money to keep them in London or anywhere else they want to go after. Ostend would be a nice spot for the travellers,” she agreed. “So many never really do Brussels that they'll never notice the same girls over again.”

“You see, I have good ideas.”

“You do. The real trouble with Ostend is the summer. I could bring in new girls during the summer season, I suppose, let them have their day of amusements before registering. That might keep them settled enough not to entirely resent me for keeping them out of gaol, but how can I afford it?”

“The corporation would buy a house in the off season.”

“And the lawyers would take their fees, and the estate agents their fees, and the board of directors their fees, and where would I be? Tell me why Liz is wrong in keeping men's fingers out of our pie.”

“Liz doesn't have your pluck.”

Kitty laughed. “Liz has the pluck, the head, and the class.”

“But you and me, we're the gamblers. She can plod along with her one house. We'll roll the dice and take them all.”

“I'll talk to her, but under no circumstances will you ever be permitted to be a majority shareholder. I won't allow it. Now let's shake on it, and I suppose you should tell me your real name, if we're to be in business together.”

“George Crofts.” His handshake was not as firm as she had expected, but he was treating her half as a lady.

“Well, George Crofts, Catherine and Elizabeth Warren will contact you at your hotel with our terms.”

\- 1871 -

New year's eve, Kitty thought. Sam and too much champagne, that last hurrah before he went home. She must have neglected to clean up properly. Unless it was the Count right after Christmas. Or George in Ostend, baptising the new house. Liz had left Ostend Kitty's venture, so she had gone with George to meet the estate agent, view houses, walk the Digue in winter, and watch the travellers disembark at the quay that had seen her first steps on foreign soil. She had spent so many days on her feet that she had been glad to celebrate on her back even before the furniture arrived. George had all the makings of a cad, but he had put down several thousand when they met at the bank, and the cash and bonds had demonstrated more fidelity than Kitty had yet witnessed in her 27 years of life. A man did not abandon that much cash. Sam was a cad, despite his letters when he was away from Brussels, and he could never prove as faithful as George.

Of course, there was always Count Lubomirski. One could not expect fidelity from a Polish nobleman, but the Count was wonderfully presentable and had his own charms. One could hardly count on a count, yet the title meant he could not be an utter cad.

Still, “My luck argues in favour of New Year's,” Kitty concluded.

She had missed her monthly, due near the end of January. It could be something else, perhaps, so she dared not tell anyone. Often these things resolved themselves. But now it was the end of February and the only thing coming out her cunt was the vinegar when she douched after an evening's entertainment. Her breasts were so tender she had snapped at the Count for toying with her nipples when usually she quite enjoyed the practice.

In seven years of whoring, it was hardly Kitty's first scare. She'd visited the dressmaker in London and drunk the medicinal teas in Brussels. Liz had been to the dressmaker twice, daring the crossing back to London for the second as she refused to trust anyone but Madam Schneider. Like the clap, it was a hazard of the trade, something to guard against but impossible to entirely avoid. In avoiding registration and taking only particular clients – in being a mistress rather than a whore, really – Kitty had avoided seeing the doctor on a regular basis. Yet here was another pregnancy, despite all her care. She should just drink the tea, she told herself. It doesn't matter who the father is.

But this time felt different, so maybe it did matter after all. Something mattered. Liz had to be involved.

“We can fit a trip to Madam Schneider in next month's budget if you can also bring someone back,” Liz told her. “We can't afford two trips home in the first quarter but we'll make the extra charge work.” She had taken quickly to quarterly earnings and shares and boards of directors even if she still looked askance at all the men involved.

“Does it change anything if it might belong to George?”

“Does it belong to George?” Liz demanded.

“How in hell should I know? It's a plausible story. If God has a sense of humour, it's Sam's, as he's the biggest cad I know. It could be Count Lubomirski's, too,” she added. Liz had once agreed that the Count was lovely.

“Anyone else in the running?” Liz asked sardonically.

“You don't have to be a bitch about it,” Kitty complained, her back up quite unexpectedly. “I like playing the lady with the Count sometimes.”

“And rolling the dirt with Sam Gardiner after.”

“If you have a duke, I can have a count.”

“None of these men will marry you, even if they can be convinced the child is theirs. George is no fool. He knows this game as well as I do, damn him, and he's right that we needed a man to put a solid, legal face on the business. With your little venture in Ostend, we cannot afford for you to chase him away with tales of a child.” Liz suddenly turned her charm on Kitty. “Be reasonable. If you want a child, we can plan for that in the next fiscal year. Once Ostend is on its feet, we can make that plan. It's just a minor delay. For now, get one of those men you lead by the nose to take you riding, then dose yourself and prepare for a trip home next month if the teas don't take. Why are you pouting? It's just a few months' delay,” she cajoled.

“I don't know!” Kitty cried. She had thought it over and still had no notion of what precisely was different this time. But something was different. Liz spoke perfect sense. She was not unfeeling, either. Next year, if the Ostend venture went well, would be a much better time for Kitty to pull back from the business and find a husband of some sort. “I'm not getting any younger, and maybe this is it? My only chance? I don't know!”

“This is simply the pregnancy talking. You had two previous ones, and you let this one go a bit longer because of our interests with George when you don't even know if it's his. Think hard, Kitty. You put us in Ostend. You owe yourself to see it through, to make the investment pay. Our money, our work – will you throw it down the drain over something that will never bring a good return?”

“Of course not,” Kitty agreed fervently. Ostend was hers, and she desperately wanted to see it through, to be proved right with or without George.

“That's my good sister.”

But Kitty continued to think. She counted over again and grew more convinced that the child must belong to the Count. Christmas was just too early, and Sam was good for nothing and had been called back by his father, anyway. His last letter made it very clear that he was not returning to Brussels. Against his will, true, but he was only any good to her when present. George would throw over the business, selling out his shares to some stranger and leaving her to start all over. But the Count might buy her off, she surmised. It could be a boon. To have a child to love and not lose money by it – what could be better? If it all went to hell, Praed could rescue her.

“I did the maths again,” Kitty told her sister. “It belongs to Count Lubomirski, and I think he might pay something before he goes. He's a real gentleman. Does that change your mind?”

“It seems to have made up your mind. What if you're wrong about his care for his bastard?”

“Praed will marry me,” Kitty announced defiantly.

Liz laughed. “Under no circumstances is Walter Praed the marrying kind.”

“He's taken up architecture. It's perfectly legitimate.” 

“That was never the issue.” 

“The wife comes with a child – what could be more perfect? Oh, I know Praddy doesn't care so much for the conventions, but he must at least have a friend who will need to sham being the marrying kind, and having the child abroad will make it so much easier. We can all three be rendered respectable if necessary.”

“How helpful of you to Mr Praed's imagined 'friend'. When do you think you are due?”

“September? December was fine, so it must be September or so.”

“I can't talk you out of it?”

“This one's taken hold strong,” Kitty grudgingly admitted.

“So help me,” Liz warned, “if it looks the least bit like George Crofts, I'll be guilty of infanticide. I need you to manage Ostend for as long as you possibly can. You'll at least be able to begin the bathing season as manageress, and that will be most important of all if we're to have a good start at keeping up with the rent on that three-year lease.”

The Count suggested she come to Vienna before she had a chance to bargain over the child, so the child remained unspoken in the end. What Lubomirski didn't know now would serve her better closer to his home, and a child in the hand would be worth more than in the womb if it came to that. To Kitty's immense pleasure, the baby proved blonde like the Count. Or maybe like Sam Gardiner's family, but Kitty was fairly sure the girl's nose was Lubomirski's. There wasn't a bit of Crofts about the girl. George could stay, the Count could pay for a third house in Vienna if he wanted her close, and Kitty could have a baby countess of her own. Virtue could never have given a quarter the return of well-managed vice.


End file.
